Commonwealth Equity Services LLC Acquires 7,958 Shares of BCE Inc. (NYSE:BCE)

Commonwealth Equity Services LLC increased its holdings in BCE Inc. (NYSE:BCE) (TSE:BCE) by 4.2% in the first quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm owned 198,773 shares of the utilities provider’s stock after acquiring an additional 7,958 shares during the quarter. Commonwealth Equity Services LLC’s holdings in BCE were worth $8,903,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Two Sigma Advisers LP lifted its stake in BCE by 225.6% in the fourth quarter. Two Sigma Advisers LP now owns 620,000 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $27,249,000 after acquiring an additional 429,600 shares during the period. XML Financial LLC lifted its stake in BCE by 37.4% in the fourth quarter. XML Financial LLC now owns 39,767 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $1,748,000 after acquiring an additional 10,825 shares during the period. GPS Wealth Strategies Group LLC purchased a new stake in BCE in the first quarter worth $73,000. Moors & Cabot Inc. lifted its stake in BCE by 2.7% in the first quarter. Moors & Cabot Inc. now owns 19,622 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $879,000 after acquiring an additional 521 shares during the period. Finally, Caldwell Sutter Capital Inc. purchased a new stake in BCE in the first quarter worth $202,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 38.75% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

BCE has been the subject of a number of research analyst reports. National Bank Financial raised BCE from a “sector perform overweight” rating to an “outperform overweight” rating in a research note on Wednesday, August 23rd. StockNews.com started coverage on BCE in a research report on Thursday, August 17th. They set a “hold” rating for the company. Canaccord Genuity Group lowered their price objective on BCE from $63.00 to $61.00 and set a “hold” rating for the company in a research report on Friday, July 21st. TheStreet lowered BCE from a “b” rating to a “c+” rating in a research report on Thursday, August 3rd. Finally, TD Securities raised BCE from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, August 4th. Four analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and two have issued a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, BCE currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $61.84.

BCE Price Performance

BCE opened at $42.55 on Wednesday. The stock has a 50-day moving average price of $43.28 and a 200-day moving average price of $44.96. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.60, a current ratio of 0.55 and a quick ratio of 0.50. The firm has a market cap of $38.82 billion, a PE ratio of 22.51, a P/E/G ratio of 5.83 and a beta of 0.59. BCE Inc. has a 1 year low of $39.88 and a 1 year high of $49.84.

BCE (NYSE:BCE) (TSE:BCE) last released its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, August 3rd. The utilities provider reported $0.59 EPS for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.60 by ($0.01). BCE had a return on equity of 16.24% and a net margin of 9.68%. The business had revenue of $4.52 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $4.55 billion. Sell-side analysts predict that BCE Inc. will post 2.38 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

BCE Increases Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, October 16th. Investors of record on Friday, September 15th will be issued a $0.73 dividend. This represents a $2.92 annualized dividend and a yield of 6.86%. This is an increase from BCE’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.71. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, September 14th. BCE’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 152.91%.

About BCE

BCE Inc, a communications company, provides wireless, wireline, Internet, and television (TV) services to residential, business, and wholesale customers in Canada. The company operates through three segments: Bell Wireless, Bell Wireline, and Bell Media. The Bell Wireless segment offers integrated digital wireless voice and data communication products and services, as well as consumer electronics products.